Honestly, at this point, Boeing Starliner can put jam in its pockets. It’s toast. It’s clear the NASA team has no confidence in Starliner or Butch and Suni would be sipping espressos somewhere near Cape Canaveral. I suspect Boeing Management sees this as a massive money loser (and now a prestige eater) as this situation just gets worse and worse. It at MOST represents a dozen or so contracts to the Space Station that are probably marginally profitable at best so they probably don’t want to do it anymore and prefer the nice meaty cost plus SLS contracts. There’s really no one else but Soyuz and even if Russia weren’t embargoed. Russia has got like 9 launches this year and Soyuz has had some wonkiness in recent launches. No one else is even as close as Starliner is. Except, of course, Dragon which in combination with the Falcon 9 is the Energizer Bunny of Launch systems. Hell, I wonder if the powers that be are impeding Starship because they fear it will make any other launch system (even Dragon/Falcon 9) look too expensive once the Starship Ecosystem gets up to speed. Except as far as I can tell they’re just opposing things to spite SpaceX, they don’t see the freight train that’s about to hit them, they don’t even believe in freight trains. Oh for an even vaguely competent NASA type administration, although that’s just pure fantasy and not Sci-Fi.

You gonna argue with John Denver?

And it could be me, but it seems the tone has changed a bit from how great the ground testing was, and look how great the thrusters did while docked, we’re just taking our time analyzing all this great data.

You forgot one essential step… blaming it on Trump and MAGA right-wingers!

The thruster problems have all occurred on the Starliner’s service module – which is, by design, not coming back intact for examination. Boeing engineers can inspect the returned crew capsule all they like – assuming it eventually makes it back in one piece – but that isn’t where the problems are.

Personally, I would like to see Boeing simply source some different thrusters from a different supplier. But that would introduce yet another significant increment of time and expense – and likely a do-over requirement for the CFT. I don’t see Boeing preferring any of that to simply washing its hands of the whole sad affair. If NASA decides to go the return-on-Dragon-next-year route for Butch and Sunni, I suspect Starliner will be a dead letter well before year’s end.

“A hands-on forensic review by the expert teams perhaps would pinpoint the issues with the thrusters and the helium leaks. ”

I do not think Nasa will be able to inspect anything. I think the problems are all on the trunk and not the capsule.And the trunk should burn up on re entry.

Richard M wrote, “Yeah, the politics kinda DO cut both ways on this, don’t they?”

I think we make a mistake thinking the Democrats really care about the American space effort and NASA’s Artemis program. All they care about is retaining power, and Musk is clearly to them an obstacle to that goal. If choosing to do something that destroys him but also destroys the Artemis program, the Democrats will do it without any regrets.

Yeah, the politics kinda DO cut both ways on this, don’t they?

That said, I have heard from enough people to believe the safety culture actually HAS changed since Columbia. Not always in the way or the velocity I might have preferred, but…it is clear that it is possible to speak up and be heard in a way that it was not before. And clearly, a number of engineers at NASA are not comfortable with their ability to adequately characterize the root causes of the Starliner thruster problems, and therefore, the risks – and they are saying so.

In Michigan, we also “ride in cars,” but we “stand in line,” “drink Pop,” and “go to the Lake.”
(we would come home “in a dragon capsule.”)

Mitch S: I changed it as Andi requested, because I can’t have my best copywriter unhappy. Though as you say, coming from New York flying on a capsule is like getting on the subway.

I seem to recall that NASA has already blackballed Boeing for new programs a while back, at what point does the whole federal procurement system have to do so?

Perhaps now, with the exclusion of their people from the last two press conferences, the people in the C-suite at Boeing understand just how badly they’ve damaged the reputation of the company. It’s not just Starliner, of course, but also the 737-series and the 787-series issues. Not a good look for an aerospace company when a significant proportion of one’s products don’t fly correctly.

If NASA chooses Starliner and something goes wrong, the old shuttle era excuses about “Space travel is difficult and involves unknowns” and ” You can’t make progress without taking risks” won’t work. So a decision you use Starliner would be interesting.
Maybe it would because Butch and Suni insist – yes they are seasoned pros on a test flight, but did they have any inkling that they’d be stuck on ISS for 8 weeks much less 6 months? Are they getting overtime pay for everything after the first 2 weeks?

(yes, I know this is picky, especially since we say we get IN a car, but get ON a plane, it just grates on me. Feel free to ignore! :)

F: If an immediate return was necessary, NASA officials have said repeatedly and loudly that they would have no problem bringing the astronauts back on Starliner. I believe them. The decision now relates to using Starliner in a situation where they don’t necessarily have to.